Breast Cancer Linked to Higher Thyroid Cancer Risk

Women who survive breast cancer may have a higher-than-average risk of developing thyroid cancer in the next several years.

Women who survive breast cancer may have a higher-than-average risk of developing thyroid cancer in the next several years, a new study suggests.

The findings were scheduled to be presented at the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society, held in San Diego.

The findings are based on a government cancer-statistics database. The database includes 704,402 U.S. women diagnosed with breast cancer only, 49,663 with thyroid cancer only, and 1,526 who developed thyroid cancer after breast cancer.

The researchers found that the women had a higher-than-normal risk of developing thyroid cancer -- particularly within five years of the breast cancer diagnosis.

The study's lead author, Jennifer Hong Kuo, M.D., a surgeon at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, told HealthDay that the increased risk of thyroid cancer was seen largely in relatively younger women.

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